Amsterdam city council on Thursday approved a motion to close a major cruise terminal in the city center, the city confirmed to AFP on Thursday.
The decision adds to a long list of measures taken recently by Amsterdam to combat mass tourism.
The cruise motion was adopted, a city source told AFP, adding that the exact result of the vote, votes for and against, had not yet been made public.
“Polluting cruise ships do not correspond to the sustainable ambitions of our city,” said in a press release the formation of the center-liberal D66, at the origin of the motion, which leads the city together with the social democrats of the PvdA and the environmentalists GroenLinks. .
The D66 also mentions the incompatibility of the crossing of cruise ships with “the construction of a second bridge over the IJ towards the district of Noord”.
Restoring peace to the people
The southern part of Amsterdam, made up of its historic center, and its northern part, much less developed and for several years the subject of major modernization projects, are separated by the IJ, an old sea inlet transformed into a large artificial lake.
Plans to build one or more additional bridges to connect Amsterdam-Noord to the rest of the city have been discussed for several years.
“Many cruise passengers let themselves go for a few hours and eat at international brands, which has little impact on the middle class,” Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema (GroenLinks) said in a November interview with the Dutch newspaper NRC. , and I add. that these tourists had “little time” to visit the museums.
The municipality of the largest city in the country has implemented several measures in recent months aimed at restoring tranquility to the inhabitants of its historic center, such as the ban on smoking cannabis in the streets of its red light district and the launch of a campaign to discourage British tourists from traveling to Amsterdam solely to consume alcohol and drugs.
Source: BFM TV
